Friday, September 2, 2011

What better way to celebrate Labor Day than give you a recipe with ingredients that overflow from your garden. I'm switching things a bit—posting a recipe on Friday and posting the usual Friday health tip on Monday.

Late summer results in an abundance from the garden, particularly tomatoes and zucchini. My tomatoes are growing, but are not yet ripe. Friends have come by with tomatoes and zucchini from their gardens so I had to come up with some recipes to make use of the bounty.

Make the dressing first. Sorry I forgot to snap pictures of the dressing, but that's not as exciting to see as the beautiful veggies. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing with a whisk until blended and set aside while you prepare the veggies. The Dijon mustard gives the dressing a mild tang that goes well with the veggies.

Cut the zucchini length-wise and slice to make half-moons.

Slice enough red onion to make a loosely packed 1/2 Cup.

Chop up fresh basil to fill one tablespoon.

We received a variety of tomatoes (golden cherry, pearl, and full-size) from our gardening friends. I cut the cherry tomatoes in two and sliced the pearl in quarters. Dice the full-size tomatoes and separate the seeds and juice from the flesh. Discard the seeds and juice.

Mix all the veggie ingredients in a bowl and drizzle the dressing over. Toss and serve.

Garden Fresh Tomato & Zucchini Salad

From Chris Pedersen

Yield 4 servings

Category Salad

Cuisine Healthy, Vegan

Ingredients

Dressing

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 tsp Dijon mustard

Dash of celery salt

Fresh ground pepper to taste

Salad

1 zucchini

1/2 C sliced red onion

1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
1C chopped tomatoes (variety)

Directions

1. Mix dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until blended. Set aside.

2. Cut zucchini length-wise and thinly slice into half-moons.

3. Cut cherry tomatoes in half. Cut roma, pearl or other medium-size tomatoes in quarters. Cut large tomatoes into dice and discard seeds and juice.

4. Mix vegetables and basil in a bowl. Drizzle dressing over salad, toss and serve.

If your garden is bursting with tomatoes and zucchini, make up a large bowl of Garden Fresh Tomato & Zucchini Salad and bring it to the Labor Day BBQ. Bring copies of the recipe because people will want it for their garden overflow of tomatoes and zucchini.